Sweets Shop Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Maisy Morgan

  “You really thought I killed your father?” Jaden asked.

  Bradley looked down, embarrassed. “I thought… maybe… I thought maybe you just lost it on him finally. I’m sorry, Mom.”

  Becky was still crying, though Stacey had finally gotten a hold of herself. “Becky?” Draco questioned. “Are you all right?”

  Becky shook her head. “Stacey, you need to show Officer Preston your arm.”

  It got eerily quiet. Jaden froze, as did Bradley and Stacey. “Why?” Stacey asked.

  “What about your arm, Stacey?” Preston asked.

  Stacey glared at her little sister as though she had just committed some great betrayal. Becky was still crying violently, having to wipe her eyes every second or so. Bradley took a step back from the two girls, staring at them as though this suggestion frightened him. Preston remained stoic, staring directly at Stacey until the girl finally stuck out her bottom lip in defiance and then began rolling up her left sleeve.

  There was an old and rather enormous bruise that went from her wrist to elbow. “My goodness!” Mary yelped. “Stacey, what happened?” Mary asked, and she saw Jaden staring down at her feet. Mary covered her mouth. “Ken?”

  Stacey nodded. “I didn’t know until… I don’t know… a few weeks ago that Bradley’s dad was hitting him. It had never happened in front of us before.”

  “Stacey was over, and Dad lost it on me, and she stood between us, and he grabbed her by the arm and flung her around like a freakin’ rag doll,” Bradley said. “I stayed at her house with her parents for a week after that.”

  Mary stared at Stacey and Becky. “Your parents knew about the abuse? Bob and Lana knew?”

  “Of course they did—look at her arm!” Becky exclaimed. “Bradley’s been staying at our house most days to avoid his dad. Our parents let him stay over there when things get too bad.”

  Becky fumbled through her phone again, and finally, she found what she was looking for. “Here…” she said, looking down at her feet, unable to make eye contact with anyone. At this point, Stacey started to cry as well.

  Mary took the phone and she turned up the volume. It was another video from the party. Becky and Kara were making faces at the camera, making use of various filters the app provided. In the background, they could clearly make out Ken and Bob’s voice. “Yeah, Jaden’s been nagging me about those lose shingles on the roof,” Ken said.

  “Yeah, well, let’s put an end to it, then,” Bob retorted. “Why don’t we just go on up and take care of it. You got a nail gun?”

  “Yeah, there’s one in the shed…”

  The video cut off. Mary stared up at Becky, as did everyone else standing around who had heard the video. “How long have you known, Becky?” Mary asked, and the girl seemed close to hyperventilating.

  “Dad loves Bradley,” Becky said, sobbing. “He had suspected for a while that something was wrong. He had tried to get Bradley to talk about it… but then after Ken hurt Stacey… Dad lost it…”

  “That’s when the plan for the buyout started,” Mary said. “And the divorce.” She looked at Jaden, whose crying had at last subsided, but she still stood there with a complete look of shock about her face. Mary shook her head. “You all conspired together—the divorce and the buyout.”

  Jaden nodded. “I didn’t know who killed Ken,” she said. “I really didn’t. I assumed it was… that it was either Bob or Darren, but I wasn’t going to ask.”

  Becky was crying so terribly that she had to sit down. “Becky, you did the right thing showing us this,” Mary said.

  Stacey sat down on the curb next to Becky. “He deserved it,” Becky snarled. “My dad killed him, but you all know he deserved it!”

  “Easy, sweetheart,” Jaden said, coming over and kneeling by her. “I am so sorry, Becky…”

  Mary and Preston exchanged glances. They needed to find Bob before someone warned him they were coming for him. “Cindy, would you mind taking Tripp home for me?” Mary asked.

  “Can do, Mary.”

  “You coming with?” Preston asked, and at this, Becky started bawling all over again.

  Mary nodded. “Definitely.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Is Becky going to be in any sort of trouble?” Mary asked from the passenger seat of the patrol car as they zoomed towards Peachtree City.

  “Not if I can help it,” Preston said. “It sure would have made my job a lot easier if she had come forward. She was probably in denial about it, if I’m honest. All she caught on video is her dad talking to Ken about going up on the roof. Bob is… Bob’s a good guy. If it had been my kid he put that big old bruise on…well, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

  “I imagine I would have been in a similar mindset,” Mary admitted. “I almost hate to see you arrest the guy. He’s got two daughters. He was looking out for Bradley. He was going out of his way, him and Darren, to make sure Jaden and Bradley got out of an abusive situation and were set up with good, steady income for when the divorce happened.”

  “But he lost it,” Preston said. “The way they went about this was wrong from the beginning. If they knew about the abuse, their first priority should have been getting Bradley away from there. Instead, they let it go on, all of them—Jaden included—so they could make an easy transition. So that it could be easier for them. Until Stacey got hurt too. Then he acted, and he did it the wrong way.”

  Mary nodded in agreement. The moment Bob realized Bradley was being hurt, he should have put a stop to it. Instead, it took his daughter getting hurt for him to act—and he had acted violently and rashly. They pulled up in front of the office building and hurried through the parking lot. As they reached the front entrance, Darren popped out and stood in the doorway. “Mary! Preston! Good to see you. So, tell me, what’s this I hear about Tripp and Kara breaking up?”

  “Move out of the way, Darren,” Preston said. “I know Bob’s in there. Who warned you?”

  Darren’s cheeks turned red and he sighed and stepped aside. Preston pushed past him, and Mary followed behind. They looked around—all was quiet. “Bob!” Preston called. “Come out; we know you’re in here!” Preston drew his gun. “Stay back in the lobby, Mary.”

  He started walking down the back hallway, peering into offices. “Bob!” Mary called. “Listen, I don’t know if you can hear me, but it’s over! We get why you did it—believe me, I’ve got a daughter too. If he had laid his hands on my kid, I might have done the same thing! But you went about it the wrong way, Bob. We’ve got evidence stacked against you already, and when they pull the fingerprints off that nail gun, it’ll be over. I need you to hear what happened just before we got here. Bradley was in the back of a patrol car, about to be carted off—arrested for murdering his father! He was devastated, and so were your girls! If you did this to protect those kids, it didn’t work, because poor Bradley almost took the fall for what you did!”

  She heard a creaking sound, and suddenly there was Bob stepping out of a side room. He was armed, and Mary felt a rush of panic. She glanced down the hall where Preston had headed, but he was far off. She wondered for a moment if Bob was going to shoot her. “I didn’t mean for him to get arrested,” Bob said sadly, slowly getting down on his knees. He put his gun on the ground and slid it towards Mary. Mary put her foot on the gun and stared back at him, surprised. Bob sat there on his knees, and he put his hands behind his head.

  “Well, he was,” Mary said. “And he was mortified, Bob.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Bob said. “Couldn’t have asked for a better kid to date my daughter, you know? I messed up, Mary. I know I did. The second I realized what was going on, I should have gotten Bradley out of there. Instead… instead, I told Jaden to keep hush about it. Wanted to do it my way. Get Ken out of the business. Get evidence against him—try to get his butt in jail for all that money he stole. I told her to wait it out—Darren and I did. For her and Bradley to keep their heads down. I didn’t tell my girls what was going on because
I didn’t think he’d be so stupid… so stupid as to hit someone else’s kid!”

  Preston came bolting out of the back hallway, realizing that Mary had found herself cornered alone with their suspect. A look of relief washed over him to see Mary standing there with her foot on the gun and Bob sitting on his knees in surrender. “We know,” Mary said. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”

  “He hurt my daughter,” Bob said. “Bad. We thought he broke her arm, and he tried to tell me… tried to tell me Bradley did it!”

  Mary’s stomach churned. “He tried to put that off on his kid? You could have had Bradley thrown in jail.”

  “Yeah,” Bob said bitterly. “I knew better, and my girls don’t lie to me. Stacey told me what happened immediately. Bradley…he’s so messed up. Took me forever to get his side of the story because he kept changing it. Afraid I’d confront his dad. Afraid of what his dad would do to him if he told me what really happened to Stacey. I told my girls they couldn’t go over there anymore, except for when I went with them.”

  Preston came over, taking Bob’s wrists and putting them in cuffs as he stood him up. “You’re under arrest, Bob,” Preston said and then put a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder. “And believe me, I’m going to make sure your judge knows you cooperated…”

  “My girls…” Bob started to say.

  “Your girls are going to be fine,” Mary promised him.

  “I should have thought of them… of what happens after, I mean… I was thinking of them when I did it…” Bob looked down as he spoke. “I just wanted to protect them. Protect Stacey. Protect Bradley…”

  Darren came walking into the building, a sad expression on his face. “You knew this whole time, didn’t you? All of you did—Lana, Nat, you…” Preston asked, and Mary was certain Darren was about to confirm that he had.

  “No,” Bob yelped before Darren could say anything. “No one knew. Just me. No one else knew.”

  “Is that your official statement, Bob?” Preston asked.

  “It was just me. No one else knew,” Bob said, glaring at Darren as though warning him against disagreeing. Darren stood with his shoulders slumped.

  “Let’s go,” Preston said, marching Bob out the door.

  Mary and Darren followed them out, and they stood back as Preston locked Bob away in the back of the patrol car. Preston turned around, looking at Darren. “You all deserve to go to jail. Just tell me this—did Jaden know?”

  Darren grunted slightly. “No,” he said. “Jaden was… she was outside by the pool with the kids. Rest of us were in the house. We didn’t know it was happening when it did. But…”

  “Don’t tell me anything more,” Preston said, and he climbed into the patrol car, closing the driver's door.

  Mary turned and looked at Darren. It was as though the man felt he needed to tell someone—even if it wasn’t an officer. “We all… me, Lana, and Nat… we saw Bob coming down from the ladder. He came inside with us just as Jaden came running into the house. Jaden, I’m sure, suspected one of us, but she never asked. She didn’t want to know, I don’t think.”

  Mary nodded. “You should go home. Kara was pretty stirred up at school. I’m guessing her mom picked her up?”

  “Yeah,” Darren said. “Kara… she’s the one who texted me and told me you were coming.”

  “What was the plan, Darren?” Mary asked. “For Bob to try to run out and escape?”

  “There wasn’t a plan,” Darren said. “I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. I just wanted to give him a minute to decide what he wanted to do, and I guess he just hid.”

  “Yes, looks that way,” Mary said. She shook her head, feeling quite dissatisfied with the whole situation. They had caught their killer, but the mystery had uncovered something quite nasty. The dead man they were working to defend had beaten his son regularly since he had been a little boy. He had even hurt his son’s girlfriend. Their killer—a man who had just wanted to keep his daughters and his daughter’s boyfriend safe. It didn’t seem right; it felt like they had the wrong man in custody. It felt like the man had been justified, but Mary knew that wasn’t how the law worked. Perhaps, she hoped, Bob would get off somewhat easy given the circumstances. He would undoubtedly do prison time, and it saddened her when she thought about Stacey and Becky without their dad at home. The whole investigation had been a roller coaster from start to finish.

  Mary sat in the passenger’s seat, fiddling with her fingers. Preston pulled out of the parking lot, and Mary glanced back to see Darren locking the place up. He was going home to his wife and daughter, no doubt. “So, I heard the kids got into a fight at school today,” Bob said somewhat casually from the backseat. “Is… err… everything okay?”

  Mary smirked. “Everything’s fine, Bob. Bradley and Tripp just got into it, and a few other kids got involved when they shouldn’t have.”

  “They’re both okay, though?” Bob asked.

  “They’re fine,” Mary assured him. He seemed pleased by this, and he sat quietly for the rest of the ride to the station.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Oh, thanks, Roy,” Mary said, reaching her hand out and taking the glass of lemonade. She had apparently looked too comfortable to get up and fetch her own drink, so Draco’s father had acted as the pool boy, fetching all the ladies as well as Preston something to drink.

  They were at the Morris’, taking advantage of their small pool around the side of the house. There were only going to be so many warm days left in the year. Tripp and Draco were swimming around the shallow end of the pool near where Hannah was seated on the stairs, occasionally splashing or tossing about a blown-up beach ball back and forth with the boys. Draco’s sister, Sarah Jane, was running around the pool, sometimes diving in on the deep end just so she could swim to where her brother and his friends were playing.

  “This was a good idea,” Cindy said, stretching a bit in her lawn chair.

  “How long does summer last in Georgia?” Mary asked half-heartedly, and everyone laughed like there was some sort of inside joke she was unaware of.

  “Georgia weather is ridiculous,” Roy said, sitting down next to his wife. “I’m not even sure we have fall anymore.”

  “Sure, we do, honey,” Anna said. “It lasts three days, and then we get a winter we can’t shake.”

  Mary laughed. They heard a horn honking, and Anna stood upright. “I was wondering if they were going to come,” she said, wrapping a towel around her waist and hurrying through the house. Moments later, she returned; a loud clatter of voices and pleasant exchanges could be heard following her.

  Bradley, Stacey, Becky, and Kara emerged onto the back porch, all looking somewhat uncomfortable as they walked past the adults but perking up when they reached the pool. With them were Darren and Nat, both of whom pulled up some lawn chairs and sat down with Mary and the others. “I’m glad you guys came,” Mary said.

  Darren’s face was quite red. “Yeah, well… Kara insisted.”

  Nat punched him in the arm. “Don’t start,” she warned.

  Mary had to admit; she hadn’t expected to hear that Draco had invited them to this little Saturday by the pool. She was even more surprised that Bradley and his female companions had all decided to come. Evidently, things had been rather rough for them all at school after Bob’s arrest. Stacey and Becky, in particular, had been experiencing some incidences of cyberbullying from what Mary had heard from Tripp. Becky had more or less been ostracized from her group of girlfriends after someone had created a meme of her revealing the video footage that had resulted in her father's arrest. The children at school were telling her she was a traitor to her dad, and they were accusing her of being a snitch.

  Bradley’s life wasn’t much better; he had been seen leaving the school in handcuffs, and despite what he repeatedly told his friends, rumors could be a hard thing to crush at a high school. Kara seemed to be the only one to have escaped serious repercussions, but she was standing by her friends’ sides. />
  “We really are glad you all came,” Cindy said. “Jaden and Lana couldn’t make it?”

  “I think Jaden just needed some time to herself today,” Nat said. “And Lana is visiting Bob.”

  “How are the girls coping?” Preston asked, nodding towards Bob and Lana’s daughters who were sitting on the steps by Hannah.

  “They got some good news the other day,” Darren said. “Bob is going to be home for a while—judge set a reasonable bail, but he’s going to be wearing an ankle monitor. His court hearing won’t be until the end of the year, so he’ll be home with his girls at least. I know Becky is nervous about it.”

  “Is she worried her dad is going to be upset?” Cindy asked.

  “She hasn’t gone to see him yet. She won’t go,” Nat said pitifully. “All the kids at school picking on her about it aren’t helping. I’ve tried talking to her about it—her mom has too. She feels like she betrayed her dad.”

  “I don’t think her dad sees it that way,” Preston said. “I went by and saw him the other day. He’s just glad Bradley’s okay.”

  Darren nodded. “Are we… off the record now, Officer Preston?”

  “I’m just Preston today.”

  Darren smirked, but his face grew serious. “Bob and I should have done something about that mess a long time ago. We knew what was going on, and we thought we could help in our own way. I should have called child services immediately.”

  “You did what you thought was right at the time,” Preston said. “I know you know that keeping Bradley in that situation just to try to get some paperwork settled was the wrong call.”

  “It was,” Darren said, looking down in embarrassment.

  “Hey, we’re moving past that now,” Roy said, jumping up. “Lemonade? Anna made it fresh. Squeezed the lemons herself and everything.”

  “Sure,” Nat said, and Roy disappeared, returning shortly with two glasses for Darren and Nat.

  Mary, who had finished about half her glass, stood upright and stretched. “Welp, I’m going to be the first parent in the water. Who wants to make a bet about how red Tripp’s face gets?”